Chapter 8

The light filters through my window, forcing me awake. I shift away from Hope to check the time on my phone. It's only six in the morning. My eyes still feel all weird and puffy from crying. Every time I cry a lot, my eyes always feel weird; it feels like when you get your eyes dilated at the eye doctor. I sigh while flopping back over on my back, staring at the ceiling. I can't believe Hope saw me like that. I feel so self-conscious. I sigh harder and turn my face to look at Hope.

She looks so peaceful when she's sleeping. I notice some freckles dusted over the bridge of her nose. I never noticed them before; they're so cute. It just makes her look even more beautiful than she already is. I don't know if I'll ever admit it out loud, but I'm glad she was here. This is the first time in forever that I actually got decent sleep. I observe her peaceful state, and the small rises and falls off her chest one more time before I get off the bed.

I quietly go downstairs and ask one of the maids to bring some breakfast upstairs. I tell them to try and not wake up Hope in the process. I make way into my shower and feel the hot water slowly loosen up the knots in my back.

Once I'm out of the shower, I brush my teeth and get dressed. As I'm going to walk out of my bathroom, I catch the smell of syrup. I feel my stomach growl at that moment. I didn't realize how hungry I was.

Walking out of the bathroom, drying my hair off with a towel, I make eye contact with a very much awake Hope scarfing down bites of her pancakes.

"Make sure to take a moment to catch your breath," I say, chuckling. She looked up at me, noticing she wasn't alone.

"You are honestly so adorable when you blush." She just blushes more as she gulps down the food in her mouth.

"Don't make fun of me." She pouted, making herself even more adorable.

"Stop looking at me like a puppy." She huffs, crossing her arms. I chuckle at her failed attempt of her trying to look serious and tough. I duck away from a pillow she launched at me, and I just bust out laughing. I could hear her lightly chuckling too.

"I'm sorry. I can't help it; you're just so adorable." She smiles up at me and continues to take a few more bites as I put my dirty clothes in the hamper. I grab myself a plate and sit up against my wall, looking towards Hope.

"Thank you again for last night. I'm still sorry you had to see that, but I'm glad you were here. It felt good waking up from that and not being alone." She reached out and grabbed my hand with a light squeeze.

"Don't ever be sorry. I'm always here for you, remember that." We smile at each other, then go back to eating our breakfast in silence.

Once we were done, I grabbed our dirty dishes and brought them downstairs to clean them, as Hope took a shower herself. I gave her some of my little sister Gina's clothes, knowing they would fit her. I know my little sister wouldn't mind; well, even if she did, she wouldn't even know. She goes to this prestigious school in Europe. I only see her for a month in July, a few days around Thanksgiving, a week at Christmas, and she usually does something with her friends during spring break. She takes her schooling very seriously; she has aspirations of becoming president one day. I honestly could see her achieving it.

I pull myself out of my inner thoughts as I enter my bedroom. I find Hope getting dressed. She didn't care about me seeing her get dressed, nor did it phase me seeing her get dressed. We've already seen each other naked; there's no going back from that. I sat down on my bed, scrolling through my phone. I kept flicking my gaze back and forth from looking at my phone and looking up at Hope, getting dressed. She has a gorgeous body. I snap my eyes back down; once I saw her turning towards me.

"You know, it's okay if you look." Of course, I got caught, I huffed at myself. Smooth, just smooth.

"Don't feel like a pervert. I don't mind you looking at me. You're the only person I don't mind doing so. Also, you've already seen me naked." She shrugged her shoulders up and made her way towards me.

"So, Hope. What would you like to do today?" I ask, putting my phone down, giving her all my attention. She broke out into a smile as she brought out her book.

"Are you athletic?" I scoff at this question.

"Of course, I am. Have you seen my body? Have you seen all the trophies around my room?" She looks me up and down, then moves her head, noticing my shelf of trophies. She got up, moving towards them.

"Wow, I don't know how I didn't notice these before. Swim, track, soccer, softball, tennis." She looks back at me.

"You play a lot of them, that's for sure." I nod my head. She just goes back to looking at all of them.

"These trophies and medals go pretty far back. I love all the pictures of you and your teams next to each trophy you have." I get up and go over there next to her. I haven't come over to this side of my room in a while. It's filled with too many memories.

"Yeah, I've been doing most of these sports since I was young. My parents started taking pictures of me with my team after every season, so I could put it next to any trophy or medal I got. I carried it on as I got older." She nods, still transfixed with looking at everything.

"It's good that you captured all these memories. It would help if you continued to do so. Who's this? I see her in pretty much every picture here." I don't even have to look at the picture to know who she's referring to. I can't even bring myself to look at the picture.

"That's Maddie," I say softly as I turn away, trying to keep myself together. I feel a small hand pull me back. I look into Hope's eyes, seeing my pain reflecting back at me. I can tell she knows what I can't bring myself to say. She looks back down at the picture and brings it to where I can see it too.

I draw in a painful breath and can already feel my eyes burning. It was a picture after our freshman year of high school. It was after our soccer team won the state championship. Her sweaty face was pressed against mine, with a huge smile, and her arms wrapped around me.

"She's beautiful. You both look so happy, and she looks like a lovely person." She softly says, not looking up at me. I just stare at the picture, feeling myself shred into a million pieces. Overwhelming pain shot through every limb in my body. I could barely hold myself and felt my weight lean against Hope. She just helped hold me up with ease.

"Yeah, she sure is beautiful, isn't she? She was a lovely person. Very funny, and courageous too. She would have liked you." I choked out, feeling more tears flow down my face. Hope squeezed me a little bit more.

"I'm sure I would have really liked her too. I wish I could have met her while we were both alive, but I know I'll meet her soon. Well, one day. You know what I mean." I nod my head, not saying anything, as if she could see me. She then put the picture back where it originally was.

"Come on, let's go downstairs, and I'll tell you what adventure we are going to do today." Just like that, she turned her deep frown into a big smile. I couldn't make myself smile, and I knew with Hope I didn't have to. I nodded my head, grabbed my stuff, as we made our way out of my room.

Once we made it downstairs, I got us both a bottle of water. She was sitting down at the island, as I stood just opposite her on the other side.

"Okay, Hope, what do we have planned for today?" As I slid myself up to sit on the counter by the fridge.

"Well, since you are athletically inclined, I want to go to the batting cages. I've never batted before, and I've always wanted to know what it would be like to hit a ball." I looked at her, not too shocked that she hadn't batted before. Considering she's never even been to an aquarium, till a couple of days ago.

"That sounds like fun to me. We can go to my old softball field. I know the guy who does maintenance, and he owes me a favor anyway." Her smile grew as she let out these excited giggles. I was about to call Tim before I heard the sound of my parents' voices call for me from the front door.

"Yeah, I'm in the kitchen." I holler back at them. I look over to Hope, who seems to have grown nervous.

"Don't worry, Hope. They're harmless." I lightly chuckled out as my parents made their appearance.

"Hello, my lovely parents. Parents, this is my friend Hope; hope these are my parents. This is my dad Henry, and this is my mom Lailah." Hope got up and shook both of their hands.

"It's good to finally meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett." My parents smiled as they shook her hand back.

"It's very nice to meet you too, sweetie, just call us Lailah and Henry. Or you can just call us Mom and dad." My mom said, bringing Hope into a hug. You could tell Hope was not ready to be hugged, but finally relaxed a little bit and hugged my mom back.

"So, what are you two up today?" My dad asked after my mom and Hope broke their hug.

"We are going to go to my old softball field. I'm going to teach Hope here how to hit a ball." I said, sliding off the counter. My dad looked at me strangely before shaking it off.

"That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm surprised you're going to go there. You've been avoiding any place that's reminded you of." My mom paused, gauging my reaction so far and making sure it was okay to continue. I didn't say anything or do anything, and she took that as a go-ahead.

"Well, any place that's reminded you of her." She finishes.

"Your mom is right, but I'm glad you're going back there. Hopefully, you'll find some closure, in a way." He chimes in right after my mom stops talking. They look at each other with a sliver of hope in their eyes that I'm doing better. That I'm starting to go back to who I was, but they don't realize that that person is dead. She died alongside Maddie. I took a deep breath, gathering myself. I look at Hope, and she's giving me a reassuring look.

"Right. Well, Hope and I are headed out; I'll be home later. Hope may be staying another night. I love you both." I said as I grabbed Hope's hand and my keys and made my way towards the garage door.

"Bye. It was nice meeting you both again." Hope barely got out before I pulled her into the garage.

"Sorry about that. They can come on a little too strong." I say as I open the door for her. As soon as she's inside, I close the door, and make my way to my side, and get in.

"No need to apologize. They seem great, honestly. I hope I get to talk to them more." I looked over to see her smiling. I lightly smiled back at her before focusing on the road and carefully driving us to the diamond.